Former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) pleaded guilty on Monday to two election-related felonies and admitted that he carried out a campaign finance fraud plot and stole credit card information when he ran for Congress in 2022.
Santos's two charges, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, carry a minimum two-year prison sentence. Santos is set to be sentenced on Feb. 7, according to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
Santos's plea arrangement with U.S. Attorney Breon Peace, which a judge approved during Santos's court appearance in Long Island, will allow him to avoid a trial. Parties in the case had been preparing for a weekslong trial that was set to begin in less than one month.
Peace brought 23 charges against Santos, alleging last October, and then again in May in a superseding indictment, that Santos submitted false records to the Federal Election Commission to benefit his campaign and stole credit card information from donors for his personal use. Santos bought designer clothing and paid off credit card debts with the donors' money, Peace said.
A House Ethics Committee report released in November shed further light on Santos's spending habits, revealing that he used campaign funds to buy Botox, OnlyFans subscriptions, and items from Hermes and Sephora.
Peace accused Santos of falsely reporting hundreds of thousands of dollars to the FEC in 2021 and 2022 so that the then-candidate would qualify for extra financial support from the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Santos admitted in court to all of the crimes he was charged with, Peace said outside the courtroom.
"[Santos] admitted that he lied, he stole, and he conned people. Santos's countless lies and audacious misrepresentations catapulted him to Congress. But for the victims of Santos's various financial crimes and the community whose falsehoods and fabrications deprived them of honest representation in Congress, he is worthy only of infamy," Peace said.
The former congressman is facing the prospect of hefty fines and significant time behind bars. While his charges carry a mandatory prison sentence of at least two years, he could receive several years in prison. His plea agreement also calls for a restitution payment of $373,749 and a forfeiture payment of $205,002, according to the U.S. attorney's office.
Santos appeared emotional outside the courtroom, apologizing to his former constituents and saying he wants "to be a part of restoring the integrity that [he] helped diminish."
"I failed you," Santos said through tears.
Santos, 36, won a competitive race in a wealthy district of Long Island in the 2022 midterm elections. However, weeks after he secured victory, reports emerged that he had run on a resume that contained exaggerations and lies. The reported falsehoods included Santos falsely representing that he worked at Goldman Sachs, lying about attending an elite preparatory school called Horace Mann, claiming to raise money on GoFundMe for surgery for a dog and then taking off with the funds, lying about being Jewish and about his grandparents fleeing Nazi Germany, and saying he attended Baruch College on a volleyball scholarship despite never attending the school.
After the House Ethics Committee released its findings on Santos, the House voted in December by an overwhelming majority to expel him from Congress.
The move to kick out a colleague was exceedingly rare and led to Santos embracing his fame by charging $200 each for customized video appearances on the app Cameo. His bio on the app read, "Former congressional 'Icon'!"
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Two former Santos aides, Nancy Marks and Sam Miele, also reached plea agreements with the DOJ last year, and their admissions helped prosecutors develop their case against Santos.
Marks, Santos's former treasurer, pleaded guilty to conspiring with the former congressman to commit wire fraud and identity theft, among other charges. Miele, who helped Santos with fundraising, pleaded guilty to wire fraud.
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